382
PARTISAN REVIEW
deeper by the split second as her little hand with its fat gold wed–
ding band groped toward Hartford's fly. "We see this things,
agapi–
moutH
Passion no doubt driving her back upon her native
tongue which she promptly shoved between Hartford's aston–
ished teeth, in what he recognized as a French kiss, having read
about them in contraband English novels.
Hartford was, therefore, even more astonished than his
teeth, for how could a Greek immigrant housewife know about
such depraved practices as the French kiss? But before he could
do more than formulate such a question, he found himself lying
supine upon the Turkish leather couch, the plate of
ghalaktom–
bouriko
safely wafted away by Eros, no doubt, and Mrs. Nausicaa
twining horizontally along one side of him, rather like the
grape-vine depicted upon her bordeau lamp, while she gently
and almost accidentally, as it were, stroked the woolen worsted
over his privates.
This was the first time Hartford had been touched by any
woman other than his mother or an occasional teacher. He had
masturbated as a little boy, until he learned that it was filthy,
evil, and likely to rot his brain, whereupon he had forced himself
to stop. He dreamed those dreams, of course, but one couldn't
really help one's dreams, and besides, the females he dreamed
about were as little as he always was in his dreams, and all they
did was suffer while he fought the Saracens with pikes and
swords. And he
always
washed his privates off when a dream
woke him up. But his privates seemed to have a will of their own
under Mrs. Nausicaa's accidental brushing of them. They bunched
together and humped up and stood upon end and before Hart–
ford could do more than squeak protestingly under his hostess'
pretty lips clamped to his own, they erupted that nasty stuff like
egg white, and Hartford was ready to die or run away, but Mrs.
Nausicaa shoved him firmly back down upon the divan and
swiftly unfastened both his fly and then his trousers and while he
kept his eyes tight shut in horror, seemed to have got her skirts
up about her waist and her underclothing off, till she was strad–
dling him and forcing his privates-rigid once more-into the
hairy, velvety embrace of her own privates.
And then Mrs. Nausicaa began to growl. At the deep, gut–
teral sounds issuing from that feminine throat, and then the yelp
which followed as Mrs. Nausicaa convulsed upon his chest,
